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Today's
Stories
December 6 / 7, 2003
Saul Landau
"Reality
Media": Michael Jackson, Bush and Iraq
December 5, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
A
Natural Eye: the Photography of Brett Weston
Jeremy Scahill
Bremer
of the Tigris
Jeremy Brecher
Amistad
Revisited at Guantanamo?
Norman Solomon
Dean
and the Corp Media Machine
Norman Madarasz
France
Starts Facing Up to Anti-Muslim Discrimination
Pablo Mukherjee
Afghanistan:
the Road Back
December 4, 2003
M. Junaid Alam
Image
and Reality: an Interview with Norman Finkelstein
Adam Engel
Republican
Chris Floyd
Naked Gun: Sex, Blood and the FBI
Adam Federman
The US Footprint in Central Asia
Gary Leupp
The
Fall of Shevardnadze
Guthrie / Albert
RIP Clark Kerr
December 3, 2003
Stan Goff
Feeling
More Secure Yet?: Bush, Security, Energy & Money
Joanne Mariner
Profit Margins and Mortality Rates
George Bisharat
Who Caused the Palestinian Diaspora?
Mickey Z.
Tear Down That Wal-Mart
John Stanton
Bush Post-2004: a Nightmare Scenario
Harry Browne
Shannon
Warport: "No More Business as Usual"
December 2, 2003
Matt Vidal
Denial
and Deception: Before and Beyond Iraqi Freedom
Benjamin Dangl
An Interview with Evo Morales on the Colonization of the Americas
Sam Bahour
Can It Ever Really End?
Norman Solomon
That
Pew Poll on "Trade" Doesn't Pass the Sniff Test
Josh Frank
Trade
War Fears
Andrew Cockburn
Tired,
Terrified, Trigger-Happy
December 1, 2003
Fawzia Afzal-Khan
Unholy
Alliances: Zionism, US Imperialism and Islamic Fundamentalism
Dave Lindorff
Bush's
Baghdad Pitstop: Memories of LBJ in Vietnam
Harry Browne
Democracy Delayed in Northern Ireland
Wayne Madsen
Wagging the Media
Herman Benson
The New Unity Partnership for Labor: Bureaucratizing to Organize?
Gilad Atzmon
About
"World Peace"
Bill Christison
US
Foreign Policy and Intelligence: Monstrous Messes
November 29 / 30, 2003
Peter Linebaugh
On
the Anniversary of the Death of Wolfe Tone
Gary Leupp
Politicizing War on Fox News: a Tale of Two Memos
Saul Landau
Lying and Cheating:
Bush's New Political Math
Michael Adler
Inside a Miami Jail: One Activist's Narrative
Anthony Arnove
"They Put the Lie to Their Own Propaganda": an Interview
with John Pilger
Greg Weiher
Why Bush Needs Osama and Saddam
Stephen Banko, III
A Soldier's Dream
Forrest Hylton
Empire and Revolution in Bolivia
Toni Solo
The "Free Trade" History Eraser
Ben Terrall
Don't Think Twice: Bush Does Bali
Standard Schaefer
Unions
are the Answer to Supermarkets Woes
Richard Trainor
The Political Economy of Earthquakes: a Journey Across the Bay
Bridge
Mark Gaffney
US Congress Does Israel's Bidding, Again
Adam Engel
The System Really Works
Dave Lindorff
They, the Jury: How the System Rigs the Jury Pool
Susan Davis
Framing the Friedmans
Neve Gordon
Arundhati Roy's Complaint for Peace
Mitchel Cohen
Thomas Jefferson and Slavery
Ben Tripp
Capture Me, Daddy
Poets' Basement
Kearney, Albert, Guthrie and Smith
November 28, 2003
William S. Lind
Worse Than Crimes
David Vest
Turkey
Potemkin
Robert Jensen / Sam Husseini
New Bush Tape Raises Fears of Attacks
Wayne Madsen
Wag
the Turkey
Harold Gould
Suicide as WMD? Emile Durkheim Revisited
Gabriel Kolko
Vietnam
and Iraq: Has the US Learned Anything?
South Asia Tribune
The Story
of the Most Important Pakistan Army General in His Own Words
Website of the Day
Bush Draft
November 27, 2003
Mitchel Cohen
Why
I Hate Thanksgiving
Jack Wilson
An
Account of One Soldier's War
Stefan Wray
In the Shadows of the School of the Americas
Al Krebs
Food as Corporate WMD
Jim Scharplaz
Going Up Against Big Food: Weeding Out the Small Farmer
Neve Gordon
Gays
Under Occupation: Help Save the Life of Fuad Moussa
November 26, 2003
Paul de Rooij
Amnesty
International: the Case of a Rape Foretold
Bruce Jackson
Media
and War: Bringing It All Back Home
Stew Albert
Perle's
Confession: That's Entertainment
Alexander Cockburn
Miami and London: Cops in Two Cities
David Orr
Miami Heat
Tom Crumpacker
Anarchists
on the Beach
Mokhiber / Weissman
Militarization in Miami
Derek Seidman
Naming the System: an Interview with Michael Yates
Kathy Kelly
Hogtied
and Abused at Ft. Benning
Website of the Day
Iraq Procurement
November 25, 2003
Linda S. Heard
We,
the Besieged: Western Powers Redefine Democracy
Diane Christian
Hocus
Pocus in the White House: Of Warriors and Liberators
Mark Engler
Miami's
Trade Troubles
David Lindorff
Ashcroft's
Cointelpro
Website of the Day
Young McCarthyites of Texas
November 24, 2003
Jeremy Scahill
The
Miami Model
Elaine Cassel
Gulag
Americana: You Can't Come Home Again
Ron Jacobs
Iraq
Now: Oh Good, Then the War's Over?
Alexander Cockburn
Rupert Murdoch: Global Tyrant
November 14 / 23, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
Clintontime:
Was It Really a Golden Age?
Saul Landau
Words
of War
Noam Chomsky
Invasion
as Marketing Problem: Iraq War and Contempt for Democracy
Stan Goff
An Open Letter to GIs in Iraq: Hold on to Your Humanity
Jeffrey St. Clair
Bush Puts Out a Contract on the Spotted Owl
John Holt
Blue Light: Battle for the Sweetgrass Hills
Adam Engel
A DC Lefty in King George's Court: an Interview with Sam Smith
Joanne Mariner
In a Dark Hole: Moussaoui and the Hidden Detainees
Uri Avnery
The General as Pseudo-Dove: Ya'alon's 70 Virgins
M. Shahid Alam
Voiding the Palestinians: an Allegory
Juliana Fredman
Visions of Concrete
Norman Solomon
Media Clash in Brazil
Brian Cloughley
Is Anyone in the Bush Administration Telling the Truth?
William S. Lind
Post-Machine Gun Tactics
Patrick W. Gavin
Imagine
Dave Lindorff
Bush's
Brand of Leadership: Putting Himself First
Tom Crumpacker
Pandering to Anti-Castro Hardliners
Erik Fleming
Howard Dean's Folly
Rick Giombetti
Challenging the Witch Doctors of the New Imperialism: a Review
of Bush in Babylon
Jorge Mariscal
Las Adelitas, 2003: Mexican-American Women in Iraq
Chris Floyd
Logical Conclusions
Mickey Z.
Does William Safire Need Mental Help?
David Vest
Owed to the Confederate Dead
Ron Jacobs
Joe: the Sixties Most Unforgiving Film
Dave Zirin
Foreman and Carlos: a Tale of Two Survivors
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Albert, Greeder, Ghalib and Alam
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher David Vest: Winner of 2 Muddy Awards for Best
Blues Pianist in the Pacific Northwest!
November 13, 2003
Jack McCarthy
Veterans
for Peace Booted from Vet Day Parade
Adam Keller
Report
on the Ben Artzi Verdict
Richard Forno
"Threat Matrix:" Homeland Security Goes Prime-Time
Vijay Prashad
Confronting
the Evangelical Imperialists
November 12, 2003
Elaine Cassel
The
Supremes and Guantanamo: a Glimmer of Hope?
Col. Dan Smith
Unsolicited
Advice: a Reply to Rumsfeld's Memo
Jonathan Cook
Facility
1391: Israel's Guantanamo
Robert Fisk
Osama Phones Home
Michael Schwartz
The Wal-Mart Distraction and the California Grocery Workers Strike
John Chuckman
Forty
Years of Lies
Doug Giebel
Jessica Lynch and Saving American Decency
Uri Avnery
Wanted: a Sharon of the Left
Website of the Day
Musicians Against Sweatshops
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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for More Stories.
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December
6 / 7, 2003
Press Box Red
Sports Fans of the World
Unite!
By MICKEY Z.
"We've got to get back to extended
families. We need more people to talk to. I pretend to be interested
in sports just to say 'good morning' to people."
-Kurt Vonnegut
About eight weeks ago, in his short-lived role
as ESPN football analyst, right wing radio celebrity Rush Limbaugh
had this to say about Philadelphia Eagles quarterback, Donovan
McNabb: "I don't think he's been that good from the get-go.
I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the
NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback
do well."
"Where's the damn Young Communist
League when you need them?" I cried.
I asked that question because I was reading
"Press
Box Red," Irwin Silber's new book about Lester Rodney...sports
editor at the Daily Worker for 25 years. As you may know, Rodney,
the Daily Worker, the aforementioned YCL, and many other red-tinted
folks all played important roles is forcing major league baseball
to abandon its Jim Crow policy. But, before you dismiss this
as a "mere" sports book that touches on a few social
issues, be warned: "Press Box Red" covers an awful
lot of ground and deftly defies categorization.
One needn't be a sports fan, history
buff, or radical lefty to be dazzled by Silber's book. It's much
more than Jackie Robinson and the battle for integration. It's
the story of one man's life for sure, but it's also about Josh
Gibson being the best catcher on the planet...and his being barred
from the major leagues. It's about Henry Armstrong declaring,
"You can't discriminate  against a left hook."
It's about Joe DiMaggio telling the press that Satchel Paige
the greatest pitcher he had ever faced...and nobody except Rodney
reporting it. It's about journalism, politics, and, most of all,
sports in American society. "Press Box Red" is also
about the Left looking down its nose at sports and sports fans...then
and now.
When the Daily Worker initiated its sports
section in 1935, it did so with the following explanation:
"It happens that baseball is the
American national game. I would say that nine out of every ten
American workers follow it intensely, as well as other sports.
You can condemn them for it, if you are built that way, and you
can call baseball a form of bourgeois opium for the masses. But
that doesn't get around the fact that...the vast ocean of Americans
of whom we are yet a minority, adore baseball. Are we going to
maintain our isolation and make Americans stop their baseball
before we will condescend to explain Communism to them? When
you run the news of a strike alongside the news of a baseball
game, you are making Americans workers feel at home. It gives
them the feeling that Communism is nothing strange or foreign.
Let's loosen up. Let's prove that one can be a human being as
well as a Communist."
Lester Rodney (still alive and kicking
in his 90s) is a New Yorker I can relate to but also someone
who lived in a New York I never experienced. He has a passion
for sports...despite the apolitical millionaires who play the
games. One passage illustrates this fervor...and requires no
prior sports fandom or knowledge. It revolves around Brooklyn
Dodger Carl Furillo declaring, "I ain't gonna play with
no nigger," when Jackie Robinson joined the team in 1947.
Rodney has us fast forward to an " important game in a close
race" against the Braves two years later. It's a scoreless
tie in the top of the fifth with the Braves batting...Jim Russell
on first, one out. Clint Conatser drives one in the right center
gap. Furillo, owner of the best arm in baseball, catches up to
the ball about 380 feet from home plate as Russell chugs around
the bases.
"Freeze the action for a moment,"
Rodney suggests. "The long-legged Russell is in full cry,
tearing through third in a wide turn. Conatser digs towards second.
Robinson eases out some fifty feet into the outfield, half-facing
Furillo. Shortstop (Pee Wee) Reese moves to cover second. First
baseman Gil Hodges moves into position to possibly cut off the
throw to the plate. Catcher Roy Campanella, the team's second
black player, who came aboard in 1948, waits slightly up the
third base line. (Pitcher Preacher) Roe ambles from the mound
to back up the plate. It's the full panorama of baseball, a team
game, in a moment that no television camera can encompass."
When we unfreeze, Furillo cuts loose
with a throw "that bullets into Robinson's glove, head high,
slightly to the right, making it unnecessary for him to pivot
his feet before throwing." Robinson fires home to Campanella.
Russell is out. The next batter pops up. The inning and the threat
are history. Furillo jogs in from the outfield as Robinson, Roe,
and Campanella wait for him at the lip of the dugout. The four
men embrace. "Rodney recalls leaning out of the press box
"to watch them descend into the dugout together, then turn
my gaze to the people in the stands, those raucous, salty, kidding,
good-natured, integrated Ebbets Fields stands."
It took seven more years for the Brooklyn
Dodgers to finally beat the hated Yankees in the World Series...but
when they did, Furillo greeted Jackie and his wife Rachel at
the celebratory party with an emotional cheek-to-cheek hug, crying,
"We did it, we did it."
They did it, all right. So what about
the rest of us?
To paraphrase the Daily Worker: Let's
loosen up. Let's prove that one can be a human being as well
as a radical (or progressive, leftist, activist, vegan, environmentalist,
atheist, anarchist, Green, or whatever).
(Postscript: When asked by the Village
Voice to comment on Rush Limbaugh's recent outburst, Rodney offered
one of the more interesting replies: "Of course a lot of
people, myself included, rooted for black ballplayers because
they were black. I don't know why that should be considered a
controversial statement. That leads, inevitably, to overrating
certain players. I'm not defending Limbaugh's politics, but I
think he just said out loud what some people were thinking. I
don't see anything particularly wrong with it.")
Mickey Z.
is the author of Saving
Private Power: The Hidden History of "The Good War".
He can be reached at mzx2@earthlink.net.
Weekend
Edition Features for Nov. 29 / 30, 2003
Peter Linebaugh
On
the Anniversary of the Death of Wolfe Tone
Gary Leupp
Politicizing War on Fox News: a Tale of Two Memos
Saul Landau
Lying and Cheating:
Bush's New Political Math
Michael Adler
Inside a Miami Jail: One Activist's Narrative
Anthony Arnove
"They Put the Lie to Their Own Propaganda": an Interview
with John Pilger
Greg Weiher
Why Bush Needs Osama and Saddam
Stephen Banko, III
A Soldier's Dream
Forrest Hylton
Empire and Revolution in Bolivia
Toni Solo
The "Free Trade" History Eraser
Ben Terrall
Don't Think Twice: Bush Does Bali
Standard Schaefer
Unions
are the Answer to Supermarkets Woes
Richard Trainor
The Political Economy of Earthquakes: a Journey Across the Bay
Bridge
Mark Gaffney
US Congress Does Israel's Bidding, Again
Adam Engel
The System Really Works
Dave Lindorff
They, the Jury: How the System Rigs the Jury Pool
Susan Davis
Framing the Friedmans
Neve Gordon
Arundhati Roy's Complaint for Peace
Mitchel Cohen
Thomas Jefferson and Slavery
Ben Tripp
Capture Me, Daddy
Poets' Basement
Kearney, Albert, Guthrie and Smith
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